Music copyright laws are imposed on learning, teaching and research under the same restrictions that apply to radio stations, night-clubs and bars.
As noted recently in The Australian by Brian Fitzgerald, in developing innovation policy for the 21st century “we need to think closely about the shape and role of copyright law and policy”. Consider the effect of current music licensing laws in developing creativity, innovation and future Australian musicians through the following examples of what is now occurring in university faculties:
Only licensed works can be utilised and individual academics must undertake detailed compliance checks to ensure that any material they wish to present to students is legal. The catalogue has proved to be highly limited, the core of which is centred around popular culture and even in this domain, the use of music from the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Queen or ACDC is prohibited. Further, recent statistics indicate that up to 80% of essential learning and research material is unavailable through these licenses. This includes works from classical, jazz, world, experimental and other culturally diverse traditions.
Therefore music students lack significant opportunities to analyse recordings in order to develop their craft, to develop wider cultural and historical understanding and to innovate by ‘building on the shoulders of giants’. Where self-directed creativity and craft comes into play, this too is limited by complex legal arrangements. Seemingly out-of-copyright classical works are often restricted by laws around the use of music scores for performance and recording. In the case of jazz and rhythm and blues, while excellence requires interpretation and improvisation, the performance and adoption of these forms is locked down by the copyright terms of ‘seventy years plus the life of the author’.
The only space that remans is for 100% original work, composed, performed or recorded by university staff and students. While often providing admirable examples of creativity and tenacity, many endeavours can suffer from insufficient contextual development given the restrictions.
Music licensing in universities reflects a catalogue that is dominated by The Big Four international labels – EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner. Many local productions may comprise derivative works and mimic what is marketed as ‘quality’ in (often American) popular culture, the net effect prophetically outlined in Australia’s first and only national cultural policy document, Creative Nation (1994). Its thrust was much in tune with the then rising wave of the dot-com boom:
The Federal Government has a significant opportunity to revisit these ideals in its reviews of the National Innovation System, the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy roadmap, and in its forthcoming Australia 2020 Summit (the latter puzzlingly lacking any reference to the music industry, an oversight which presumably will be addressed by the Minister for the Arts).
Australia’s innovation system already possesses significant broadband infrastructure across its universities which is crippled less by lack of speed (for the moment), but more so through lack of judgement in response to the extra-national domination of copyright law. It is simply a matter of legislation.
Music licensing in universities reflects a catalogue that is dominated by The Big Four international labels – EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner. Many local productions may comprise derivative works and mimic what is marketed as ‘quality’ in (often American) popular culture, the net effect prophetically outlined in Australia’s first and only national cultural policy document, Creative Nation (1994). Its thrust was much in tune with the then rising wave of the dot-com boom:
Many Australians say that just now Australian culture is under unprecedented threat. The revolution in information technology and the wave of global mass culture potentially threatens that which is distinctly our own. In doing so it threatens our identity and the opportunities this and future generations will have for intellectual and artistic growth and self-expression . . [we must] ensure that what used to be called a cultural desert does not become a sea of globalised and homogenised mediocrity.
The Federal Government has a significant opportunity to revisit these ideals in its reviews of the National Innovation System, the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy roadmap, and in its forthcoming Australia 2020 Summit (the latter puzzlingly lacking any reference to the music industry, an oversight which presumably will be addressed by the Minister for the Arts).
Australia’s innovation system already possesses significant broadband infrastructure across its universities which is crippled less by lack of speed (for the moment), but more so through lack of judgement in response to the extra-national domination of copyright law. It is simply a matter of legislation.
. . . Miikka Salavuo has more thoughts about 'copyright in online music education' and the current situation in Finland at the Sibelius Academy.
